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49ers' McKittrick Dies at 64
Ira Miller
SF Chronicle
03.16.2000

Bobb McKittrick, who helped the 49ers win five Super
Bowls by repeatedly molding lesser-rated players into the effective
offensive lines that blocked for Joe Montana and Steve
Young, died yesterday after a 14-month bout with liver cancer.

McKittrick, 64, one of the first assistants hired by Bill Walsh
in 1979, was third in longevity with a single team among NFL coaches
last season. He remained active almost to the end, although last
year, he rarely was able to travel to road games and spent his
working time primarily studying player tapes in the office.

He was diagnosed with cancer of the bile duct shortly after the
1998 season ended. For a time, McKittrick was on the national list
awaiting a liver transplant, but by the time a liver became available
for him, the disease had spread too far. He died at Stanford
Hospital.

The 49ers honored McKittrick at halftime of a home game against
Tennessee last October. After the season, the team invited back many
of McKittrick's former linemen for a dinner to celebrate his career.
An annual award honoring the 49ers' best lineman is named for
McKittrick, whose NFL career spanned 28 years, the last 21 in San
Francisco.

``He was the most successful offensive line coach the game has
ever seen,'' Walsh, now the 49ers' general manager, said yesterday.
``He was a great man and will truly be missed by all of us.''

A former Marine officer who once planned a career as a teacher,
McKittrick was well-read and well-
traveled. In his coaching, he relied on players who demonstrated
athletic ability and could learn proper blocking techniques.

The theory was a simple one, based on the David vs. Goliath
principle. McKittrick believed that smaller, agile athletes could
succeed against bigger, stronger men. He frequently showed little or
no interest in some of the higher-rated and better-publicized line
prospects because he felt they weren't suited to his style, no matter
how good they might be.

Instead, he built lines by using undersized players that other
teams in the league either overlooked or did not want. For years, the
49ers had the smallest offensive line in the NFL, but they managed to
win five championships and construct a dynasty that remained near the
top of the league on offense for 20 years.

Walsh agreed with McKittrick's theories, but in the mid-'90s,
after Walsh had left the organization, the 49ers got away from that
style and began seeking larger men.

Perhaps it was only coincidence, but that was when the 49ers'
downfall began. Team officials at the time said bigger linemen were
needed because defensive linemen were getting bigger, too.

Yet, McKittrick's theories were proved still to work when the
Denver Broncos won the Super Bowls following the 1997 and 1998
seasons with the lightest offensive line in the NFL.

In a 1998 interview, McKittrick succinctly explained his theory.

``I like smart, athletic people who can do schemes and can
understand them, instead of just blacksmiths who try to hit it harder
the next time,'' he said. ``We do a certain amount of what people in
the past have called finessing, and it's very subtle, but the better
the athlete, the better they can execute it.''

During McKittrick's tenure as the 49ers' offensive line coach,
the team produced 19 Pro Bowl selections among offensive linemen,
only one of them a player drafted in the first round.

Bobb McKittrick was born four days after Christmas, 1935, in
Baker, Ore. He earned a bachelor's degree in agriculture and a
Master's degree in education at Oregon State, where he played
football and served briefly as an assistant coach following a
three-year term in the Marine Corps.

Originally, McKittrick got involved in coaching because the
football job paid $450 a year more than he earned by teaching. He
followed head coach Tommy Prothro from Oregon State to UCLA and
eventually to the San Diego Chargers, where he first met Walsh,
another assistant on Prothro's staff. Walsh left San Diego to coach
at Stanford but, two years later, he became the coach of the 49ers
and hired McKittrick.

McKittrick was known for teaching his smaller linemen to block
low on defensive linemen to try to get them down on the ground. The
technique is called cut-blocking or leg-whipping, depending on who is
describing it. Defensive linemen hated it, and former Raiders
defensive lineman Howie Long, who was voted into the Hall of Fame in
January, once tried to attack McKittrick following a game.

``Typically in the NFL, linemen would like to play the whole game
standing up,'' Walsh once said. ``They prefer never to have to go to
the ground. Well, we went to the ground and we cut people down, and
we hit people around the ankles. (Opponents) have not liked that
approach.

``There are just very few coaches who were willing to teach those
techniques. They're more physical and tougher to execute than
everybody standing up and pushing each other around.''

Several former 49ers assistant coaches who left the team to
become successful head coaches elsewhere credited McKittrick as a
significant factor behind the team's long run of dominance. Jon
Gruden, now the Raiders' head coach but once a 49ers assistant for a
year, said he learned more from McKittrick than any other coach in
the league, calling him ``the smartest coach in football.''

Two Super Bowl-winning head coaches, Mike Holmgren of Seattle and
Mike Shanahan of Denver, were trained in the nuances of Walsh's West
Coast offense by McKittrick when they joined the 49ers as offensive
coordinator.

``He's unique among line coaches,'' Holmgren once said. ``One, he
doesn't ever curse, never swears. He's a very bright guy, a voracious
reader and writer.

``At the same time, he is really flexible, really a good man to
work with.''

That McKittrick managed to last two decades under three head
coaches -- Walsh, George Seifert and Steve Mariucci -- while being
frequently outspoken says much about his ability to coach. Even
Walsh, who tolerated little dissent as a head coach, never succeeded
in fully muzzling him.

``In staff meetings, I try to say what needs to be said,''
McKittrick explained. ``If everybody just wants to say what they
think somebody wants to hear, after awhile, you get in a pretty sad
groove, I believe. Some people have mixed feelings about me opening
my mouth.''

Walsh agreed. He said, ``You have to understand him.''

McKittrick also was known for his aversion to cold-weather
clothing. During games in the Northeast and Midwest, he used to stand
on the sidelines wearing nothing heavier than a short-sleeved shirt,
regardless of the weather. Holmgren once told him he had to wear a
coat because it was so cold his teeth were chattering and he couldn't
be understood.

McKittrick said he simply didn't get as cold as other people, but
once he got the reputation for going
coatless, he admitted that he enjoyed it because line coaches don't
usually get much attention.

It was typical of McKittrick to continue to work during his
illness. He went through the 1982 season wearing a colostomy bag
because of surgery to remove his colon. The operation caused him to
miss the ceremony at which the 49ers received their first Super Bowl
rings, but three weeks after surgery, he was on the field coaching at
a mini-
camp.

Memorial services will be private. McKittrick is survived by his
wife of 42 years, Teckla, two adult sons, Mike and Ladd, and two
grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family requested that
contributions be made to the Leo Adler Foundation-
Bobb McKittrick Scholarship through the U.S. Bank in Portland, Ore.

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